Water flow
Here, here, Alan Birchmore AO (The Examiner, January 16), our wonderful Cataract Gorge is indeed the spiritual heart of Launceston but one with a very restricted main artery (South Esk river).
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
As one who conducts guided tours of the Gorge, it pains me to tell visitors that what they see now is a mere shadow of what it used to be before the Trevallyn Dam was built.
When the Gorge was first found by British expeditioners in 1804, William Collins described it as one of the great natural wonders in the world.
The magnificent cataract of water that he described has now disappeared.
What has also disappeared are some of the species that existed in the waters of the Gorge below the dam.
Others are now endangered due to the change of ecology that is a result of the lack of water flow.
Restoring the river to its natural flow may be a pipe dream for now but that is not a reason to be deterred from campaigning for it to happen in the future.
Geoff McLean, Launceston.
Yacht Basin
ALAN Birchmore has absolutely the right aspiration in returning the South Esk flow to the Yacht.
Basin and adjacent parts of the upper Tamar, that is the Seaport area and lower parts of Home Reach.
I cannot comment on the age or state of repair of the Trevallyn Power Station but in this day and age where renewable power assets are seen as preferable then mothballing such a facility would seem a hard one to 'sell' at the very least.
That said there is a way to return that flow to the Yacht Basin which is to build a return canal from the Tailrace towards the Yacht Basin.
The canal would be a waterfront feature in itself and provide additional amenity and recreational utility as well as being the driver of rehabilitating the upper waterway.
Due to the Great Lake contribution, the current average flow is significantly higher than the historic natural flow and more than sufficient to create a new clean waterway, a clean virtual lake in the Yacht Basin with surplus going to the Seaport.
The most delicious aspect of this is the Great Lake contribution that historically flowed south via the Shannon and into the Derwent now ends up in the Tamar.
What is not to like about that and an easier 'sell', in my opinion.
Mike Seward B Eng (Nav Arch), South Launceston.
